Home Office makes progress towards new ESN product and service timeline

The Home Office, which has seen its ambitious Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) struggle to meet deadlines, has taken a major step forwards with the creation of a new product launch timeline for the Emergency Services Network (ESN).

The project, which is believed to be at least a year to 15 months behind its original schedule, has been the subject of a Home Office internal review and will subsequently face a forthcoming National Audit Office (NAO) enquiry. It has also faced continued scrutiny from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

There had been a suggestion, examined by the PAC at a recent witness hearing involving Home Office Permanent Secretary Sir Philip Rutnam, that among the options being considered are an incremental roll-out of ESMCP, or the effective shutdown of the programme. But the mood of those working on the project is said to have improved significantly with the creation of the new timeline, seen by Government Computing.

In his evidence to the committee Sir Philip largely refused to confirm the review options being considered. Those close to the project believe the new timeline – which may still change from its current draft form – increases the likelihood of the project continuing incrementally, following the route of the new timeline, and goes some way to deterring the nuclear option of the programme being shut down, without pre-judging the detail of the Home Office review, the outcome of which is currently unknown. It is, however, understood that the review has now been completed and that a decision on the future of the programme will be made shortly.

Sir Philip was grilled by MPs, particularly by North East Derbyshire MP Lee Rowley, at the PAC hearing on June 27. But those close to the programme believe that Rutnam ‘took one for the team’ and despite the severe questioning on ESMCP, managed to buy some time for the review to be completed and for work to begin in following the new plan.

The new timeline takes a different approach to the initial rollout timetable which approached the rollout from a perspective of when police forces would pilot and eventually sign off the involvement of their rank and file to use the ESN instead of the existing Airwave system.

The new timeline is understood to reflect the different thinking and influence of new project director Bryan Clark who joined the ESMCP in March. It moves away from the idea of a force-driven timeline and reflects the user needs of not just police forces but also ambulance trusts and some elements of the fire service, particularly for data rather than voice.

This development was signalled in the PAC hearing by ESMCP senior responsible owner Stephen Webb, who said, “We are probably not doing it strictly by region, because if you are an ambulance trust and you have mobile data terminals that are due for a refresh, it is a relatively simple issue to put one of the ESN SIM cards in as it goes in, and then you have far better data quality. Ambulance trusts are one group that I am noticing are reaching the borders of what they can do with commercial broadband as it stands, so they are interested in this.”

Webb added, “We have a series of user needs between the critical data part of the solution and the critical voice. It is increasingly clear that, actually, the network is in a good state. EE, over the ESN, is in a position, pretty much now, to offer prioritised, highly robust critical data, and a number of our users are interested in taking that now.”

It is understood that the timeline, described in its current form as an “ESN Product and Service Evolution”, will be introduced in the last quarter of this year, and will run into 2021.

The initial timeline is understood to foresee the creation of an element currently called ‘ESN Assure’, which is designed to build confidence in the Emergency Services Network. That would run into the second quarter of 2019 and be overlapped by another element also beginning later this year called ‘ESN Connect’, which is intended to offer ‘fast, secure, and reliable connectivity ’ that will ensure users have access to data at the right time. An enhanced version of ESN Connect, dubbed ‘ESN Connect +’, will offer a smartphone enabled experience.

The major timeline moves, starting from the second quarter of next year, will see the creation of three further parts of the timeline, dubbed ‘ESN Direct 1.0’, ‘2.0’ and ‘3.0’ followed by a final element, ‘ESN Prime’.

It is understood that ESN Direct 1.0 will start the journey towards Public Safety Communications on the dedicated 4G ESN; ESN Direct 2.0 covers ‘seamless’ communications between control rooms and field based colleagues on Airwave or ESN; and ESN Direct 3.0 will introduce new ways of working with public safety video. ESN Prime, which is anticipated to be rolled out towards the middle/end of 2020 will offer a fully featured public safety communications experience on the dedicated 4G Emergency Services Network.

In all the new timeline is understood to represent ‘continual service improvement’ in delivering an ‘optimal customer experience.’